Movie studios again demand HDTV disabling powers from FCC

Even the MPAA now concedes that its bid for selectable output control could …

Hollywood's bid to force a yet-to-be-agreed-upon number of households to buy new home theater gear is back in business. The Motion Picture Association of America has once again asked the Federal Communications Commission for the right to selectively control output streams to the TV entertainment systems of consumers. "The pro-consumer purpose" (!) request "is to enable movie studios to offer millions of Americans in-home access to high-value, high definition video content," three MPAA biggies explained during a meeting they held with seven FCC Media Bureau staffers last Thursday.

Consumer groups, electronics makers, pro-consumer bloggers, and consumers, it should be noted, think this idea is a very stinky dog. So did former FCC Chair Kevin Martin. But that does not seem to dissuade the MPAA, whose principals just can't seem to let the issue go. What's interesting about the group's latest filing, however, is that it effectively concedes that the output changes it wants could, in fact, hobble some home video systems.

"The vast majority of consumers would not have to purchase new devices to receive the new, high-value content contemplated by MPAA's" request, the group assures the FCC. But first, a history of this controversial crusade.

No go with the flow

As we've reported for well over a year, in June of 2008 the MPAA petitioned the FCC for a waiver on a practice that the agency banned in its 2003 "plug and play" Order—messing with a video stream so as to disable either the analog or digital flow to a consumers' home HDTV/DVR system. This is called "selectable output control." Hollywood says it wants to partner with cable companies to offer pre-DVD releases of big movies, but not unless they transmit through "secure and protected digital outputs in order to prevent unauthorized copying and redistribution." That means bleeping the analog stream, which MPAA worries is less "secure."

In the interviews we did with several MPAA officials, we tried very hard to get them to explain to us what exactly they want security from (naughty consumers trying to record the movie, perhaps?), but to no avail. What the trade group rather robotically emphasizes is that pre-DVD releases will benefit people who for various reasons can't get to theaters. "Physically challenged or elderly consumers who have limited mobility would have greater choice in movie viewing options," the group's filings on this issue say. "It would similarly benefit parents who want to see a new movie, but who cannot find or afford a babysitter."

But critics of the proposed deal want to know why the FCC should let the studios on whose behalf MPAA is petitioning—Paramount, Sony, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal, Disney, and Warner Brothers—limit the capabilities of home TV systems that consumers have already bought and installed. "The side effect," warns the consumer group Public Knowledge in an educational video it has put out on this question, "is that SOC would break all eleven million HDTVs in the US that don't have digital input. In essence, all the MPAA wants is to control when and how you watch the stuff you've already paid for."

Frozen critics

From this point of departure came a quick he-said-she-said at the FCC about how many home video systems SOC would screw up. In mid-November, the Consumer Electronics Association, which not surprisingly also hates this idea, warned that if the FCC gave Hollywood an SOC waiver, 20 million HDTV sets could cease to function as they did when they were bought by US consumers. PK's Jef Pearlman showed up at the agency's door a few days later and called this a low estimate, since it didn't count DVRs and other devices that might get their input exclusively from analog connections.

Not to be outdone, the MPAA returned to the FCC's HQ in late November with the rejoinder that its critics were, in essence, Luddites.

"At its core, the position of CEA is that technology should be frozen in time, and any new services that require advanced technology should be banned," a small crew of MPAA folk and supporters explained at a meeting with former Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein. "This position is quite astonishing, coming from an organization that in the past has advocated in favor of technological innovation."

Finally we asked then Commission Chair Kevin Martin at one of his last press conferences what he thought about SOC. "I'm not supportive of moving forward with this MPAA proposal at this time," Martin told us in late December. But when Ars pressed if the issue was now tabled for the Obama administration's FCC, the outgoing boss said yes. "If another Commission" wants to deal with the question, "they will be able to, obviously, but I'm not supportive of it," he explained.

And so, not surprisingly, SONY Pictures was once more into the breach by early February, trying to get interim Chair Michael Copps to see "the advantages of expanded consumer choices in the marketplace" that would supposedly come with a waiver on SOC. There is no evidence that Copps, who was totally preoccupied by the DTV transition at the time, gave this issue more than a moment's thought.

Not to worry

MPAA's latest filing takes issue with PK's 11 million number, noting that a comment submitted by the group last September doesn't cite a source for the figure. But then it continues: "Even if accurate, the Public Knowledge figure is vastly overinclusive because it counts homes where consumers do have at least one television set with protected digital inputs (even though they also may have older sets in other rooms in the house). In fact, the vast majority of consumers would not have to purchase new devices to receive the new, high-value content contemplated by MPAA’s waiver request."

Our translation: SOC could screw up plenty of home theater equipment, but that's ok, because those households have backups with digital inputs. The MPAA filing does not explain why any device that a consumer bought with their good money should be hobbled in this instance. Nor does it counsel the FCC on how to help those whom MPAA effectively concedes would have to buy a new device. Nor are we any closer to a reasonable estimate of how many households would face this unfortunate result.

And don't ask us what FCC Chair Julius Genachowski thinks about this mess because we don't know, yet.

Matthew Lasar / Matt writes for Ars Technica about media/technology history, intellectual property, the FCC, or the Internet in general. He teaches United States history and politics at the University of California at Santa Cruz.